A Study on the Methods for Solving the Theodorsen Equation for Numerical Conformal Mapping

Conformal mapping has been a familiar tool of science and engineering for generations. Determination of a conformal map from the unit disk onto the Jordan region is reduced to solving the Theodorsen equation, which is an integral equation for boundary correspondence functions. There are many methods for solving the Theodorsen equation. It is the goal of numerical conformal mapping to find methods that are at once fast, accurate, and reliable. In this paper, we analyze Niethammer’s solution based on successive over-relaxation (SOR) iteration and Wegmann’s solution based on Newton iteration, and compare them to determine which one is more effective. Through several numerical experiments with these two methods, we can see that Niethammer’s method is more effective than Wegmann’s when the degree of the problem is low and Wegmann’s method is more effective than Niethammer’s when the degree of the problem is high.